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Conservatives, particularly those with college educations, have become dramatically more skeptical of science over the past four decades, according to a study published in the April issue of the American Sociological Review. Fewer than 35 percent of conservatives say they have a “great deal” of trust in the scientific community now, compared to nearly half in 1974.

“The scientific community … has been concerned about this growing distrust in the public with science. And what I found in the study is basically that’s really not the problem. The growing distrust of science is entirely focused in two groups—conservatives and people who frequently attend church,” says the study’s author, University of North Carolina postdoctoral fellow Gordon Gauchat.

In fact, in 1974, people who identified as conservatives were among the most confident in science as an institution, with liberals trailing slightly behind, and moderates bringing up the rear. Liberals have remained fairly steady in their opinion of the scientific community over the interim, while conservative trust in science has plummeted.

Interestingly, the most educated conservatives have led that charge. Conservatives with college degrees began distrusting science earlier and more forcefully than other conservatives, upending assumptions that less educated people on the whole are more distrustful of science.

Gauchat attributes the changes to two forces: Both science and conservatives have changed a lot in 40 years. In the post-WWII period, research was largely wedded to the Defense Department and NASA—think the space race and the development of the atomic bomb. Now the scientific institution “has come out from behind those institutions and been its own cultural force.” That has meant it is increasingly viewed as a catalyst of government regulation, as in the failed Democratic proposal to institute cap-and-trade as a way to reduce carbon emissions and stave off climate change.

“People are now viewing science as part of government regulation,” Gauchat says.

Previous studies have shown that climate change, the widely-accepted theory that man-made carbon emissions are causing the world to grow warmer, is very unpopular among conservatives, and especially white conservative males. In 2008, half of all conservatives believed in climate change. By 2010, only a third did, compared to more than 70 percent of liberals, according to a Gallup poll.

The issue has caused a bit of a hubbub in the Republican primary. Failed candidate Jon Huntsman wrote in August, “To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy,” before later walking that back and saying there were still doubts. Newt Gingrich has been pounded repeatedly by rival Rick Santorum—who says global warming is a “hoax”—for appearing in an anti-climate change ad with Nancy Pelosi in 2006. (He’s since said there is evidence “on both sides of the issue.”) And Mitt Romney says he believes the Earth is getting warmer, but isn’t sure how much humans are contributing to that.

The study was based on answers to the General Social Survey, which began asking people about their level of trust in various public institutions, including Congress and the Supreme Court, in the 1970s. The dip in trust toward the scientific community didn’t correlate to a decrease in trust for all political institutions, since conservatives showed increased trust in political institutions during the Bush presidency, but still found science suspicious.

Gauchat says he’s done other analyses that show in Europe, the trend is flipped on its head. Liberals show a greater distrust of the scientific community. “It’s which debates are salient in the public. Maybe this is a trend that will reverse if genetically modified foods becomes a big deal in the U.S.” he said.

The Obama administration’s announcement that it may allow seismic studies potentially paving the way for offshore drilling along the East Coast is political posturing designed to distract voters concerned about high gasoline prices, oil industry leaders and Republican lawmakers said today.

The administration’s move “continues the president’s election-year political ploy of giving speeches and talking about drilling after having spent the first three years in office blocking, delaying and driving up the cost of producing energy in America,” said Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash. “The president is focused on trying to talk his way out of what he’s done, rather than taking real steps to boost American energy production.”

At issue is Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s announcement in Norfolk, Va., this morning that the government is assessing the environmental effects of allowing seismic surveys along the mid- and south-Atlantic that could help locate hidden pockets of oil and gas. If ultimately approved, the studies by private geological research companies also could help guide decisions about where to place renewable energy projects off the coast.

The Interior Department is issuing a draft environmental impact statement that assesses the consequences of seismic research on marine life in the area. The Obama administration had planned to release a similar document in 2010, before the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

If the draft environmental assessment is finalized after public comments and hearings, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management could give companies permits to conduct the studies off the coasts of eight East Coast states.

Salazar said that if the geological research turned up promising results, that could open the door to offshore drilling in the area within five years, even though the administration currently has ruled out that kind of exploration before 2017. A government plan for selling offshore drilling leases from 2012 to 2017 does not include any auctions of Atlantic territory.

“If the information that is developed allows us to move forward in a quicker time frame, we can always come in with an amendment,” Salazar said. “We’re not prejudging that at this point in time. My view is … we need to develop information so we can make those wise decisions.”

Industry officials noted that under federal laws, it could take years for the government to revise the 2012-2017 leasing plan, even if federal officials decided to pursue Atlantic drilling.

Erik Milito, upstream director for the American Petroleum Institute, said the administration is repackaging old news and old plans to make it appear it is making real progress to encourage more domestic energy development.

“This is political rhetoric to make it appear the administration is doing something on gas prices, but in reality it is little more than an empty gesture,” Milito said.

Randall Luthi, the president of the National Ocean Industries Association, likened the administration’s announcement to giving the industry “a canoe with no oars, since there are no lease sales planned anywhere off the East Coast.”

If allowed to conduct seismic surveys, geological research firms would ultimately give the resulting information to the government and sell it to companies eager to analyze the data.

But Milito questioned whether seismic companies would pursue the work, given that some of their best customers — oil companies — wouldn’t be able to use it to plan offshore drilling for years, if at all.

“Without an Atlantic coast lease sale in their five-year plan, the administration’s wishful thinking on seismic research has no ultimate purpose,” Milito said. “The White House has banned lease sales in the Atlantic for at least the next five years, discouraging the investment and job creation, and ultimately production, which would make seismic exploration valuable.”

Still, at least six companies already have told the government they want to conduct seismic research along the East Coast.

“We have gotten significant expressions of interest from companies in contracting for these seismic surveys,” said Tommy Beaudreau, the director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. “I am confident that, assuming the process continues on the track we anticipate, that there will be significant interest next year in conducting these surveys.”

Geological research uses seismic waves to map what lies underground or beneath the ocean floor. The shock waves — which some environmental advocates say may harm marine life — map the density of subterranean material and can gives clues about possible oil and gas.

Seismic studies also help identify geologic hazards and archaeological resources in the seabed — information useful in determining the placement of renewable energy infrastructure as well as oil and gas equipment.

The existing seismic surveys of the Atlantic coast are decades old, and in the years since, “there have been enormous technological advances,” Salazar noted.

“We do need to have seismic moving forward so we can really understand what the resource potential is,” Salazar added.

Scientists have found a large reduction in the amount of the coldest deep ocean water, called Antarctic Bottom Water, all around the Southern Ocean using data collected from 1980 to 2011. These findings, in a study now online, will likely stimulate new research on the causes of this change.

Two oceanographers from NOAA and the University of Washington find that Antarctic Bottom Water has been disappearing at an average rate of about eight million metric tons per second over the past few decades, equivalent to about fifty times the average flow of the Mississippi River or about a quarter of the flow of the Gulf Stream in the Florida Straits.

“Because of its high density, Antarctic Bottom Water fills most of the deep ocean basins around the world, but we found that the amount of this water has been decreasing at a surprisingly fast rate over the last few decades,” said lead author Sarah Purkey, graduate student at the School of Oceanography at the University of Washington in Seattle, Wash. “In every oceanographic survey repeated around the Southern Ocean since about the 1980s, Antarctic Bottom Water has been shrinking at a similar mean rate, giving us confidence that this surprisingly large contraction is robust.”

Antarctic Bottom Water is formed in a few distinct locations around Antarctica, where seawater is cooled by the overlying air and made saltier by ice formation. The dense water then sinks to the sea floor and spreads northward, filling most of the deep ocean around the world as it slowly mixes with warmer waters above it.

The world’s deep ocean currents play a critical role in transporting heat and carbon around the planet, thus regulating our climate.

While previous studies have shown that the bottom water has been warming and freshening over the past few decades, these new results suggest that significantly less of this bottom water has been formed during that time than in previous decades.

“We are not sure if the rate of bottom water reduction we have found is part of a long-term trend or a cycle,” said co-author Gregory C. Johnson, Ph.D., an oceanographer at NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle. “We need to continue to measure the full depth of the oceans, including these deep ocean waters, to assess the role and significance that these reported changes and others like them play in the Earth’s climate.”

Changes in the temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, and dissolved carbon dioxide of this prominent water mass have important ramifications for Earth’s climate, including contributions to sea level rise and the rate of Earth’s heat uptake.

“People often focus on fluctuations of currents in the North Atlantic Ocean as an indicator of climate change, but the Southern Ocean has undergone some very large changes over the past few decades and also plays a large role in shaping our climate,” said Johnson.

The data used in this study are highly accurate temperature data repeated at roughly 10-year intervals by an international program of repeated ship-based oceanographic surveys. Within the U.S., the collection of these data has been a collaborative effort of governmental laboratory and university scientists, funded primarily by NOAA and the National Science Foundation. However, much of the data used in this study were measured by international colleagues.

“Collection of these data involves 12-hour days, seven days a week, of painstaking, repetitive work at sea, often for weeks on end with no sight of land. We are grateful for the hard work of all those who helped in this effort,” said Purkey.

The Philippine Department of Energy orders Forum Energy to suspend exploration work at Service Contract 72 as the acreage falls within the area of a territorial dispute between the Philippines and China.

Otto Energy farms out a 15 percent stake in Service Contract 55 off the Philippines to Red Emperor Resources and signs a letter of intent for Maersk Venturer to drill the Hawkeye-1 exploration well in the block.

BW Offshore has confirmed that bodies of the remaining three crew members who went missing in the FPSO explosion in Brazil in February, have been recovered. With this, the total number of fatalities from this incident stands at nine. Two crew members remain in hospital, receiving medical attention and their condition is reported to be […]

‘Blue Queen’, the recently delivered, Ulstein-designed, platform supply vessel has landed its first gig in the North Sea. The platform supply vessel, named at Ulstein Verft on Friday, February 27, will be working in the spot market. On Monday, it embarked on its first assignment with Lundin Petroleum. “We are very satisfied that the ‘Blue Queen’, […] […]

Forum Energy, a UK-based oil and gas exploration and production company, has declared a force majeure on Service Contract SC72, offshore the Philippines. The company has said that Philippine Department of Energy (“DOE”) has granted a force majeure on activities in the area because it is situated within the territorial disputed area of the West Philippine Sea […]

Statoil has awarded the Johan Sverdrup SURF Detail Engineering and Services 2015-20 contract to IKM Ocean Design. Johan Sverdrup field is a large oil discovery in production licenses PL265, PL501 and PL502 in the Utsira High region of Norwegian Continental Shelf, 140 km west of Stavanger. The field development is a phased development. Phase one […]

Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) Director Abigail Ross Hopper has announced the bureau will offer more than 21 million acres offshore Texas for oil and gas exploration and development in a lease sale that will include all available unleased areas in the Western Gulf of Mexico Planning Area. Proposed Western Gulf of Mexico Lease […]

Trans Adriatic Pipeline AG (TAP) has launched two pre-qualification contracts for the construction of the 105 km offshore pipeline section under the Adriatic Sea. The greatest depth the pipeline will be laid is 820 meters. According to TAP, the first pre-qualification comprises Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Installation (EPCI) works for the offs […]

DOF Subsea UK’s survey and positioning business in the UK and US has been awarded an extension of a Master Service Agreement with Heerema Marine Contractors of Leiden, The Netherlands. The contract covers global provision of survey and positioning services on board Heerema Marine Contractor’s vessels, including the Hermod, Balder, Thialf, Aegir and support […]

After the acquisition by LetterOne, the Hamburg based upstream company RWE Dea has a new owner, a new supervisory board and gets a new name. LetterOne is a privately owned Luxembourg-based global investment vehicle focused on utilizing its financial resources, management and investment expertise. At the first general meeting of shareholders a new supervisory […]

Technip has been awarded a contract from Tupi BV, a consortium composed of Petrobras Netherland BV (PNBV, 65%), BG (25%) and Galp (10%), for the ongoing development of the Lula Alto field, located in the Santos Basin pre-salt area, Brazil. This contract covers the supply of around 200 kilometers of flexible pipes and associated equipment, […]

McDermott Middle East, Inc. has been awarded initial work for a significant power supply system replacement contract by Saudi Aramco for the Marjan field, offshore Saudi Arabia. Work is expected to be executed through the fourth quarter of 2016 and will be included in McDermott’s first quarter 2015 backlog. The overall brownfield project comprises integrated […]

Bibby Offshore, a provider of subsea installation, inspection, repair and maintenance services to the offshore oil and gas industry, has made several Board changes as part of a reorganisation of the... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Trans Adriatic Pipeline AG (TAP) has launched two pre-qualification contracts for the construction of the 105 km offshore pipeline section under the Adriatic Sea. The greatest depth the pipeline will... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Statoil has awarded the Johan Sverdrup SURF Detail Engineering and Services 2015-20 contract to IKM Ocean Design. Johan Sverdrup field is an oil discovery in production licenses PL265, PL501 and... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

McDermott International has been awarded a contract for a new jacket, temporary deck and replacement umbilical by Qatar Petroleum for the North Field Alpha gas development, offshore Qatar. According... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Technip has won a contract from Tupi BV, a consortium composed of Petrobras Netherland BV (PNBV, 65%), BG (25%) and Galp (10%), for the ongoing development of the Lula Alto field, located in the... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

DOF Subsea UK Limited, a provider of integrated subsea services, announced that its survey and positioning business in the UK and US has been awarded an extension of a Master Service Agreement with... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

McDermott has been awarded initial work for a significant power supply system replacement contract by Saudi Aramco for the Marjan field, offshore Saudi Arabia. Work is expected to be executed through... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

James Fisher has acquired the entire share capital of Subtech. The initial consideration is ZAR61.0m (£3.4m) in cash plus potential future consideration up to a maximum of ZAR175.0m (£9.9m) based on... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Ireland’s Providence reported that the initial evaluation of the fast-track 3D volume has revealed seismic morphologies in the Drombeg prospect which are consistent with those of a large... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Chevron Australia’s Gorgon Gas Development Fourth Train Expansion Proposal, which is expected to expand the liquefied natural gas (LNG) production capacity on Barrow Island from 15 to 20 million... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Statoil’s active leases in the Gulf of Mexico

Peter Thiel worked with some impressive talent back in the early days of PayPal, but one person stood out from the rest of them. On the second day of the Launch Conference in San Francisco, Thiel was asked by moderator Jason Calacanis about which member of the Paypal cohort impressed him the most. He hedged at first, explaining that he found all of them extr […]

It's been nearly a year since MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur for a red-eye flight to Beijing on March 8, 2014. The whole world knows what happened next, but so far, no one knows why the plane still hasn't been found. We read aviation expert Jeff Wise's book, “The Plane That Wasn’t There: Why We Haven’t Found Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, […]

Kerobokan (Indonesia) (AFP) - Two Australian drug smugglers in Indonesia were taken from their Bali prison Wednesday to an island where they will executed, as the Australian leader said his country was "revolted" by their looming deaths after frantic diplomatic efforts to save them.Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were taken in two armoured cars, s […]

Forget Mars. Scientists recently found a type of life on Earth so unknown to us it might as well be alien. The lifeforms are so tiny that researchers have been debating whether or not they could even exist for decades. They finally caught the tiny bacterium, which only has a volume of 0.009 cubic microns (for perspective, a micron is one millionth the length […]

Unlike Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice did not use a private email account to conduct official business when she led the State Department. Business Insider spoke to a source close to Rice following a New York Times report that noted Clinton used a personalized email rather than a government address when she was secretary of state. The source claimed Rice, […]

Uber is buying a mapping startup called deCarta for an undisclosed amount, Mashable reports. Right now, Uber uses Google Maps data to power its apps for drivers and riders. This new acquisition hints that that relationship might not last. The acquisition might also play into the Advanced Technologies Center that Uber's building in Pittsburgh, Pennsylva […]

Warning: If you're not caught up with season 3, episode 3 of "House of Cards," there are spoilers ahead. A big subplot in season three of Netflix’s "House of Cards" is Frank Underwood’s (Kevin Spacey) relationship with Russian president Victor Petrov (Lars Mikkelsen). The first time the two cross paths is in episode 3 when Petrov vis […]

FA Insights is a daily newsletter from Business Insider that delivers the top news and commentary for financial advisors. Robo-advisor Wealthfront hits $2 billion in assets (Wealthfront) Robo-advisor Wealthfront has reached $2 billion in assets in just over three years. The advisor now ranks in the top 100 in total assets managed for RIAs, and believes it […]

Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky is continuing her post-scandal career with a TED talk later this month. Lewinsky, who gained international infamy due to her affair with former President Bill Clinton, is scheduled to speak at TED 2015 Truth and Dare in Vancouver, Canada on March 19. After a lengthy absence from the public eye, Lewinsky began remaki […]

Even though more people are expected to start using wearable devices in the next five years, Cisco's Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast says the global landscape in 2019 will look very similar to how it looks today — just much larger. There were 108 million wearables in the world last year, and that number is expected to grow to 578 million by 2019. Ba […]

Submitted by Lance Roberts via STA Wealth Management, Yesterday, I discussed a few of the issues surrounding the current extension of the cyclical bull market and the excuses that will be delivered when it eventually ends. The current deviation in price from underlying economic fundamentals should be a warning sign for investors. However, when prices are tre […]

By Brad at www.CapitalistExploits.at To succeed in investing you essentially have to beat the majority of other investors. This will not be achieved by thinking like everyone else. You will have to think and act differently to everyone else. How do most people think when it comes to trading, or at least what do they spend most of their time on? The majority […]

Earlier today, we laid out all of the myriad reasons why Draghi-style QE won’t (indeed can’t) work. Some of these reasons are logistical (euro fixed income supply/demand imbalance) and some are structural (former easing efforts impeding current accommodation). We’ve also taken a hard look at the deleterious effects CB asset purchases have had on market liqui […]

Submitted by James E Miller via Mises Canada blog, Does a warning mean anything if nobody listens? With the precarious case of Lake Mead, doomsayers never seem to break the surface. For years, reports of the lake’s declining levels have popped up in the news. Yet residents of the surrounding area still refuse to listen. The latest report from the Interior De […]

The last three times that API inventories reported (each notably greater than expected), crude prices tumbled (only to ramp hilariously the next day following DOE inventory data). Against Bloomberg estimates of a 3.95 million barrel build, API printed only a 2.89 million barrel build; and WTI crude prices surged to the day's highs. Crude jumped to the […]

For those who bought the breakout to 5,000 in the Nasdaq... We are sad to report that The Nasdaq Composite was unable to trade back above 5,000 today... An early dip into the red for the week was rescued, then another dip after Europe closed took all but The Dow into the red for the week... but then as the USD strengthened and bonds sold off, stocks ral […]

As the world awaits to see if following his speech, Israel's PM will now proceed with launching a full on assault on Iran just to show he means business, or at least stage yet another false flag intervention to greenlight war in the middle east, several hundred kilometers to the northeast, the biggest offensive in the "war on ISIS" is now taki […]

A running theme here has been the great rotation of bubble-blowing credit from subprime housing to subprime auto-loans. Amid government probes of underwriting standards and soaring delinquencies, it appears when the least-creditworthy Americans are cut off from debt servitude, bad things happen in car sales... *FORD FEB. U.S. LIGHT-VEHICLE SALES FALL 2.0%, E […]

A CIA “psychological operations” manual prepared by a CIA contractor for the Nicaraguan Contra rebels noted the value of assassinating someone on your own side to create a “martyr” for the cause. The manual was authenticated by the U.S. government. The manual received so much publicity from Associated Press, Washington Post and other media that – during the […]

This article in the Independent Sentinel was apparently developed from an interview that top conservative radio host Mark Levin conducted with broadcaster Susan Payne. Levin is a kind of conservative neocon from what we can tell and the Independent Sentinel seems to believe that radical Islam is the biggest threat since Prussia. But nonetheless, the determin […]

There have been anti-central bank demos in Germany, anti-EU demos across Europe and now there are anti-Monsanto demos in both South America and Europe, including Poland. The South American demos and protests have been going on for a while. But this protest in Poland seems fairly unique and shows once more how people are confronting a variety of authoritarian […]

One of the social mythologies of our time is that it is in the power and ability of governments to remake society in any image or shape that those with political authority consider "good," "right" and "just" for mankind. No other idea has caused more horror and hardship in modern times. The extreme attempts at such "social […]

My wife says I'm weird and she is probably right. First, I personally love cold weather, mountains and skiing, so why am I looking south? Maybe it is because the words of Jimmy Buffet's "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes" keep going through my mind. Well, I enjoy cold and snow when it is out in the mountains surrounded by nature […]

Once one understands how much of the information band British media promotions occupy, it is difficult to watch the BBC for any length of time. Watch the Beeb for a day and be educated about how to believe and what to say. The Beeb is a prime exponent of dominant social themes. Each finds space for elaboration on news programming. These themes, in our view, […]